THE SUPERCOMMITTEE IS DANGEROUS TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

At this writing, many details of the debt-ceiling deal wrangled out over the weekend remain fuzzy. One thing is clear, unfortunately: The national security of the United States is going to suffer greatly.

The Pentagon stands to be whacked by as much as half of the $1.5 trillion that an as-yet-undesignated congressional "supercommittee" is supposed to come up in "deficit reduction" by Thanksgiving.

The trouble is that more than $400 billion has already been cut from our national security investments over the past few years. Thus even if no further reductions are made in the spending allocated to defending our people and interests around the world, we will see ominous reductions in the capabilities needed to meet those vital responsibilities.

The warnings of what will befall our military and country as a result are beginning to accumulate. President Obama’s first defense secretary, Robert Gates, put down repeated markers as he headed for the door to the effect that we are risking once again "hollowing out" the armed forces if anything like the sorts of cuts Mr. Obama has proposed ($400 billion), let alone those called for by others (up to $1 trillion), are forthcoming.

Senior military officers, including the new chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey and Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., respectively, are making plain that the repercussions would be far-reaching.

Adm. Winnefeld told Congress at his confirmation hearing:

"As we get to a higher and higher number [of defense cuts], we’re going to find that the strategies that we currently have are going to reach inflection points where we’re just going to have to stop doing some of the things that we currently are able to do because what we can’t afford is to have any kind of a cut result in a hollow force. We can’t afford to have a cut result in irreversible damage to our industrial base."

Last week, the Lexington Institute’s Daniel Goure observed that these officers were hardly alone:

"The Vice Chiefs [of Staff of the four armed services in congressional testimony] described a military worn out by continuous combat or allowed to age out as the result of a defense buildup that failed to adequately modernize the force. Each of the services has been plagued by readiness problems that, in some cases, have interfered with their ability to deploy forces."

Responsible legislators are expressing concern as well. For example, last week the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of California, declared that cuts of the magnitude now in prospect "would have a disastrous impact on our military and we wouldn’t be able to carry out our missions."

Earlier last month, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, took to the floor of the Senate to challenge a remark by President Obama to the effect that we had to protect our government’s "core commitments," such as food stamps, at the expense of national security spending.

Mr. Kyl observed that there is no core commitment that supersedes the obligation to provide for the common defense, the first business of the federal government.

Yet Mr. Obama, congressional Democrats and at least a few Republicans are determined to make the sorts of reductions that will prevent us from assuring the common defense. Some, particularly in conservative circles, are doing so out of a conviction that only a strong economy can make possible a strong military.

In December, 1992, Ronald Reagan gave a remarkable address at Oxford University in England.  In a passage eerily relevant to today’s debate, the former president declared:

"It is a fashionable assertion in these troubled times that nations must focus on economic, not military strength. Over the long run, it is true, no nation can remain militarily strong while economically exhausted. But I would remind you that defeats on the battlefield occur in the short run. As the tragedies of Bosnia, Somalia and Sudan demonstrate all too well, power still matters. More precisely, economic power is not a replacement for military power."

History has taught us a painful lesson that we are poised to learn all over again. Cutting "security spending" in a dangerous world is an invitation to enemies – actual and prospective – to make it much more dangerous for Americans and their vital interests. It invariably proves to be a false economy, and the costs are measured in lives as well as immense amounts of dollars.

We literally cannot afford to make this mistake. Those responsible, starting with the members of the "supercommittee" must be held accountable.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington DC.